To cheer myself up, I’ve been re-reading/editing the silliest story I’ve ever written. In the process, I came across this throw-away joke.
“... and there are precedents.”
“Yeah, down in the basement. It’s my job to feed them,” said Tom. Then he caught their puzzled expressions. “Oh, precedents. I thought you said presi- Uh. Never mind.”
Since this statement is never actually explained anywhere in the story, I’ve come to the conclusion that Tom has Donald Trump chained up in the basement of the secret lair.
I also thought I’d share with you what must be the strangest sequence I’ve written in my life, in which the main characters are attacked by the punctuation of their own story. Here you have a copy-editors nightmare.
Bemused Girl ducked as several small, black somethings appeared out of nowhere, whizzed overhead and vanished again.
“What the *#!- were they?” she asked.
“They looked like commas.” said Traditional Bluetac Gatherer. As the next one appeared, she glared at it until it glued itself to the wall. It was an exclamation mark.
“I thought, you could only do that to paper,’ said Technicality Man.
“Writing counts.” She did a little celebratory dance at having done something useful with her powers.
“Actually, arithmetic count’s,” said Technicality Man.
“Why are we being attacked – by punctuation?” asked Bemused Girl. The rest of the team shrugged and glanced around at the others for an answer. Bemused Girl concentrated her power on Technicality Man until he was unable to resist giving an answer.
“Something, must have happened/ to Correct Punctuation Lion.” he said.
A semi-colon hit Chesty Cough Girl full in the coughy chest, knocking her several metres down the corridor.
“& Obscure Usage of a Semi+Colon Ocelot;”
A swarm of interabangs flew at Origami Man’s face. Continuity Leopard snapped a few of them out of the air. He considered the taste, then ate the rest.
“This, is. ridiculous:” said Traditional Bluetac Gatherer.
“Can”t you) do something…’ Technicality Man asked Continuity Leopard, Cant you-claim emergency ¬ powers or something.”